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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26352445">sketches and boba</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl6202/pseuds/fangirl6202'>fangirl6202</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops &amp; Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Bending (Avatar), Bisexual Disaster Sokka (Avatar), Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Boys In Love, Crushes, Gay Zuko (Avatar), Idiots in Love, Love at First Sight, M/M, Not So Suave Sokka, Oblivious Zuko (Avatar), The Jasmine Dragon (Avatar), Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:55:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,871</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26352445</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl6202/pseuds/fangirl6202</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>His eyes widened and he looked up to see Sokka's cheek a bright red, a hand nervously on the back of his neck. </p><p>"I-I may have talked about you to my professor for like… an hour?" </p><p>Zuko was floored. "You like me?" </p><p>If he had been listening, he would have heard the entire staff let out moans of disbelief, but all his attention was on Sokka, who only gaped at him. </p><p>"I-I mean, I thought I was being super obvious with it--"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>540</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sketches and boba</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>“The guy over there has been staring at you for the past </span>
  <em>
    <span>hour</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Azula hissed at him, making Zuko flinch just a little. He knew just who his little sister was referring to because Zuko had been staring at </span>
  <em>
    <span>him </span>
  </em>
  <span>for around the same length of time. Maybe a little longer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had seen the boy around a few times before, always asking for strawberry boba and always with a girl Zuko couldn’t help but feel jealous of. Zuko felt no romantic attraction towards women, but even he could see she was pretty. Very easily anybody’s type. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The two usually came in on a Tuesday and headed out as soon as their orders were given to them, but today? Today the beautiful boy came in alone, ordered a Jasmine tea, and sat down at a corner table. Zuko had noticed he kept a sketchbook on him, and couldn’t help but watch as the boy set to his artistry the moment he sat down. He had openly stared for about five minutes before he heard Azula tell him to do his refill rounds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had thought he felt the boy’s eyes following him as he walked around the cozy tea shop, but he must have imagined it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ooh, what are we talking about?” Ty Lee wondered, coming over to where the two siblings were, her naturally curious personality getting the better of her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing,” Zuko responded at the same time that Mai said, “The boy Zuko has a crush on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Water Tribe boy?” Another voice said, and the three of them looked up to see the siblings’ cousin Lu Ten walking down the stairs that led to the flat above the Jasmine Dragon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko went beet-red, opening his mouth to protest, but Lu Ten gave him a look that made it obvious denying it would be futile. Even Uncle Iroh sent him a wise look that Zuko deliberately chose not to interpret.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever,” He muttered, messing with his hair in the way he did when he got flustered. “It’s not going to amount to anything. I’m pretty sure he has a girlfriend.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Azula let out a loud groan. “Zuzu, they could </span>
  <em>
    <span>literally </span>
  </em>
  <span>just be friends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko snorted at the nickname, finding it more amusing than annoying right now, but Azula didn’t really change his mind. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>No matter how cute the boy was, how stunning his eyes were, how soft his hair looked, Zuko forced himself to push his little crush down.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It just wasn’t going to happen.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You need a refill?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko hadn’t meant to, but he scared the boy, who jolted back and shut his sketchbook with a loud slam. He looked up at Zuko with wide eyes but quickly relaxed when he realized it was just his server.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shit,” he breathed out, a small smile playing on his lips. “Sorry man, I didn’t hear you coming. But, uh, yeah! Sure, thank you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko gave him an embarrassed smile, not quite looking him in the eye as he refilled his cup, finding comfort in the familiarity of the movement. He’d been serving tea in the Jasmine Dragon for years and always found the simplicity of the job calmed him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s your name?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko’s head shot up and he saw the boy’s eyes widen, his cheeks a rosy pink.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, it’s just, uh, you're always the one at the counter when my friend and I come in, so I thought I would ask?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>My friend. Not ‘my girlfriend’.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Noshimuri Zuko,” He said, bowing just slightly, like he was taught as a child, but remembered Western customs enough to expect the outstretched hand. “But please, uh, call me Zuko.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sokka,” the boy replied, and both realized they were holding onto one another’s hand, and let go equally flushed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, uh, what are you drawing?” Zuko said, trying to start some sort of small talk while he dared to do so, gesturing towards the sketchbook on the table. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, nothing important. Just some designs for an idea I had, nothing too fancy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before Zuko could apologize for being so nosy, Sokka opened the book and turned it so Zuko could see it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Spirits…"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What Zuko was expecting to be a sketch of people passing by the shop, fuck maybe even some of the customers inside the shop. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>What he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>expecting was to be shown schematics and blueprints and designs for a machine Zuko couldn’t even comprehend. It took him a moment, but he soon realized it was a submarine. Sokka was designing a fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>submarine. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, it’s just something I’m doing in my free time, nothing important or anything like that,” Sokka said, words coming out in a mile a minute. “It’s not much, but--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sokka this is incredible,”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The boy’s eyes widened and Zuko could have lost himself in how </span>
  <em>
    <span>blue </span>
  </em>
  <span>they were, “R-Really, you think so?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know nothing about engineering but this is amazing,” Zuko said in a dazed tone. He looked up and took notice of his hoodie, sporting the emblem of Ba Sing Se University. “Is this what you’re in school for?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka nodded, seemingly lost for words. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, I’m asking too much aren’t I?” Zuko said, suddenly conscious of the fact that most people </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>want to have conversations with their servers. “I’m sorry, I’ll just--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He made way to leave, to forget this interaction happened, </span>
  <em>
    <span>he has a girlfriend, </span>
  </em>
  <span>to try to convince himself Sokka didn’t want this, when Sokka’s hand shot out and grabbed at his hand. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka probably hadn’t meant to shout the word at him, but luckily for them, the shop was relatively empty. They didn’t notice, but the entire staff was watching them from the backroom, breaths held and money ready to be exchanged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I, uh, I’m feeling bold right now, so I’m just going to go for it?” Sokka stuttered out, and Zuko prayed he wouldn’t let go of his wrist. “My friend Suki told me I was being stupid and that I should have shown you weeks ago.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did let go of Zuko’s wrist, but only to go back to his sketchbook and flip a few pages back.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Agni Kai.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There, on the page, in stunning detail, was </span>
  <em>
    <span>Zuko. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Several different sketches, but they were all of him. Him smiling, him laughing, him smirking, him glaring, just </span>
  <em>
    <span>him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m a double major,” Sokka said. “Engineering and Fine Arts. I had to choose a model to sketch for an assignment a-and you’re the first face I see every day and I just subconsciously started sketching you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He studied himself in the drawings, how Sokka had gotten his mouth right and his hair to a T and--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You got my scar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His scar had been a part of him since he was 13, since he came out to his father, since he had woken up Azula in the middle of the night and the two had run away from and escaped to the Earth Kingdom city of Ba Sing Se to live with their Uncle Iroh. It was a bitter reminder of his former life in the Fire Nation, and it was always something people saw. They hid it well, especially the regulars, but everyone did a double-take when they saw the mutilated skin covering half his face. Burn victims were rare now, what with firebenders still recovering from the stigma laid on them by their ancestors, so it only made Zuko even more pitiful. It was all people saw when they thought of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that wasn’t the case here. His scar wasn’t the focal point of each sketch.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was his eyes. He had never known they could look so </span>
  <em>
    <span>happy.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"No one's ever looked past my scar before."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked at the top of the paper, where there was an A+ in red ink with a single sentence </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Incredible work Sokka</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(ask him out already!)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes widened and he looked up to see Sokka's cheek a bright red, a hand nervously on the back of his neck. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I-I may have talked about you to my professor for like… an hour?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But-” Zuko stuttered. “What about your girlfriend?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now it was Sokka’s turn to sputter. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>What? Suki?!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>At Zuko’s look of concern, the water tribesman huffed out a small laugh. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>She </span>
  </em>
  <span>is a lesbian, dating another Kyoshi warrior actually. We’re best friends, but really, she’s been trying to get me to confess to </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>so--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Zuko was floored. "You like me?" </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If he had been listening, he would have heard the entire staff let out moans of disbelief, but all his attention was on Sokka, who only gaped at him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I-I mean, I thought I was being super obvious with it, but--"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm a really unobservant person if it's any consolation," Zuko said as a way of apology. "Usually people have to be extremely outright with me if they want something."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Oh," Sokka said, mulling this over. "In that case: Zuko I </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>like you and I was wondering if you'd like to go out sometime. T-To dinner. To dinner with me, I mean, uh dinner with </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>, on a date--"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shut him up by leaning down and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, and this time the screams from the back room were heard. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'd, uh, really like that. I’m off after 6?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just when he thought that might be too short of notice, Sokka nodded in a dazed way, eyes cloudy a bit. “Six… yeah, I can work with that…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zuko gave him a shy smile, bowed, and walked back to the staff room. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The rest of his shift, he had to deal with everyone (and he meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>everyone</span>
  </em>
  <span>) congratulating him, teasing him, and poking fun at him, but even Azula’s air of “I told you so” couldn’t wipe the smile off the firebender’s face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That smile was present when Sokka turned up outside the Jasmine Dragon with flowers later that evening, when they went to look at turtleducks after dinner, when Sokka subtly slipped his hand in his and they ended up holding hands for the rest of the night, and especially when he pulled Sokka in and kissed him under the awning in front of the shop</span>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sokka had been the first person to ever truly make him smile, and there were many different smiles over the course of their relationship. The ‘Spirits-you’re-an-idiot’ smile, the ‘You’re-too-cute-for-me-to-be-mad-at’ smile, the ‘I’m-so-glad-I-get-to-love-you’ smile, the ‘you’re-secretly-sketching-me-right-now-aren’t-you?’ smile, and dozens of others Zuko couldn’t pinpoint. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But Sokka could. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sokka claimed Zuko was his favorite subject and never stopped drawing him. He was great at drawing from memory, and so their apartment’s walls were covered in drawings of their date nights or their adventures. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Three years later, Zuko wasn’t even surprised when Sokka promptly decided which of his drawings would be placed first, right above the fireplace in the brand new house they hadn’t even fully moved into. The two stood for a moment just admiring it before they had to return to the painstaking task of unboxing everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first sketch Sokka did of his love, of the many faces he pulled during a shift at his uncle’s shop, with a new sketch in the bottom right corner.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The face Zuko made when Sokka proposed.</span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was actually sweet to write and I hope you guys enjoyed it! </p><p>I thrive off of human interaction, so-- comments please?? I crave validation (I'm only half kidding lol)</p><p>Thank you for reading this!! Have a great day!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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